Experts believe Cardano will displace Ethereum as the second-largest crypto as ADA prepares for 400% breakout

Ahead of the Alonzo hard fork and the launch of smart contract functionality on Cardano, the altcoin’s market capitalization has increased to $92.4 billion. It has replaced BNB as the third-largest cryptocurrency. 

Cardano expected to flip Ethereum with 4x rally

Cardano’s market capitalization has increased by over 187% in nearly 30 days. Analysts expect the proof-of-stake blockchain network to surpass Ethereum’s market cap if ADA continues rallying consistently. Independent analyst and YouTube content creator Lark Davis has set a realistic price target of 4x for ADA. 

Davis states that a four-fold rise in Cardano’s market capitalization puts it neck and neck with Ethereum and opens the possibility of a “flippening”. A Cardano analyst behind the Twitter handle @TheADAApe shares how far along ADA has come to flipping ETH.

Analysts expect new smart contract projects and decentralized applications (dApps) to build on Cardano instead of Ethereum. 

Once smart contract functionality is live, dApps currently working on the testnet are expected to move on to the mainnet, in addition to new dApps in the ecosystem. In their latest development update shared by the Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK) dev team, working on the Cardano blockchain, the launch of the testnet and mainnet is on track, and smart contract functionality is likely to go live in mid-September. 

Further, analyst and entrepreneur Tai Zen believes that the time taken for Cardano to go from $5 to $10 will be shorter than the time taken to go to $5. $5 is considered a psychologically important level for the altcoin. 

A four-fold increase in ADA’s market capitalization is likely to flip Ethereum. Exceeding ETH’s market capitalization would make ADA the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, behind only Bitcoin.

Cardano currently does not have a burn mechanism in place, unlike Ethereum. Cardano’s founder Charles Hoskinson is against instating burn to create artificial deflation and supply shock to drive the altcoin’s price higher. 

Based on analysts’ views, Cardano has a stronger community relative to Ethereum. While ETH has a total value locked (TVL) of $114 billion from the trade volume on peer-to-peer non-fungible token marketplaces and decentralized finance applications, Cardano is yet to host dApps on its blockchain. 

Overall, Cardano flipping Ethereum depends on the work by Cardano developers and community post-launch of smart contract functionality on mainnet. The altcoin is gearing up for a 400% breakout. 

Analysts at FXStreet expect ADA to hit $3.50 as the altcoin shows strength on the daily price chart.